“A Boy and Girl With a Cat and an Eel” by Judith Leyster, born 409 years ago today.

So, anyone notice it’s been kinda hot out? Clock these rising temperatures: impeachment articles against Rosenstein, the reunification of some—and very much not all—migrant families, the death at thirty-one of Femen founder Oksana Sachko, and a whole lot more. Hot damn.

Luckily, your good friends, the Mobyistas, have been chilling under the metaphorical sprinkler of our blog, where the week’s been a little more bearable. Come, worthy human, let us dash through the waters together:

• Ian Dreiblatt counted us in to Emanon, the dystopian graphic novel that composer and saxophonist Wayne Shorter has written to accompany his forthcoming three-disc album of the same name.
• Nikki Griffiths wrote about Haruki Murakami’s new book being treated like smut by officials in Hong Kong, which is sure to disappoint Hong Kongers looking for actual smut.
• Ryan Harrington brought us big news from the world of Hemingway lookalikedom. And also, sort of, from the world of eating lots of butter. You’ll see.
• Emily Hoffman encouraged the people of earth to join forces with the excellent non-profit Behind the Book.
• Alex Primiani covered the New York Daily News’ reckoning at the vile hands of Tronc. Daily News, daily  blues.
• 

  “Meadow,” by the anti-fascist painter Stefan Filipkiewicz, born 139 years ago today.

  Simon Reichley sang the praises of an astonishing new development with huge implications: reprogrammable Braille!

• Susan Rella revealed the identities of the dastardly fools who robbed Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Library.
• Michael Seidlinger noted that people are reading a lot less than they used to, adding (paraphrasing here), “Well that blows.”
• Gaia Steinfeld DeNisi cheered on a Gainesville couple who’ve just made a massive donation of books to the neonatal ICU at their local hospital.
• Michael Barron could not be located. If you see him, please send up a flare.
• Tom Clayton briefly considered a few lingonberry-scented hours in the reading room that’s just been set up at a London Ikea.
• Stephanie DeLuca has the Man Booker longlist! You can have it too!

“Central Australian Landscape,” by Albert Namatjira, born 116 years ago today.

There was, as eternally, some news we didn’t quite get to:

• Reporters Without Borders, an international organization that monitors the safety and freedom of journalists around the world, has released a fresh report on the impact online harassment is having on the news industry. The very quick version? It’s bad out there.
• Sean Spicer, the detestable water-carrier for American fascism who hates Daft Punk, Dippin’ Dots, and the truth, has had a book event at a BJ’s in Seekonk, Massachusetts canceled “due to the political climate” — aka because he is a monster undeserving a place in human society. Seriously, fuck that guy; he may be up all night, but it is not for good fun.
• A first edition of the first computer program ever written has been sold at auction! Ada Lovelace, the pioneering genius who wrote the algorithm in question, is of course the subject of Ada’s Algorithm, which suggests that the computer age might have begun two centuries earlier had her contemporaries found her astonishing work easier to follow.
• Long-lost pages from the autobiography of Malcolm X have been found!! This is remarkable, and very big news. Pulitzer-winning X biographer Manning Marable spoke about these pages shortly before his death in an interview with the International Socialist Review.
• The numbers are in, and eloquent as ever: the US book publishing industry took in an estimated $26.23 billion last year on 2.72 billion units. This represents a modest decline of $40 million from the previous year.

And finally, it is Saturday morning, and if you’re going to bask in a beautiful cartoon at all this week, now’s probably the time. We’re delighted, then, to share Václav Čtvrtek’s gently heartbreaking and highly baskable Křemílek a Vochomůrka, the Czech tale of two elves who live in a world of moss and ferns. Go ahead, enjoy something sweet in this bitter crust of a world:

And that’s that! After Tuesday, we won’t be seeing you for a little while — as we do every year, we’ll be taking this August off from blogging, to catch our breath, perfect our high-diving, get the a/c fixed, and—oh yeah—impeach the damn president. We’ll see you right back here in September, full of beans, snark, book news, and more. Take care!

“Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train,” by Marcel Duchamp, born 131 years ago today.